Grant McCracken wrote a note recently over on his blog about the workshop he and Joshua Green are teaching at MIT on qualitative research. I thought this would be of interest ton Consortium readers as well, both because of the topic and because the course is being taught by C3's research manager and one of our consulting researchers.

The course runs for the next 3 weeks and students present their findings January 31st. Grant will be posting observations from the course over the next few weeks on his blog.

We have chosen to set this methodology course in the demanding context of a real world study. Students will be asked to master the ethnographic method even as they use it for a practical purpose. Our topic is whether and how the Public Broadcasting System may embrace new media. Specifically, can PBS use the new technologies for production, communication, interaction and networking to change what it is and how it connects with its audiences?

We say "whether" because you might decide, on the completion of your study, that PBS is perfect just as it is and that there is no "new media" option that makes compelling sense. This is a legitimate alternative. The other extreme is to suggest that the new media option is grounds for a reinvention of PBS, that no program should remain unchanged. This too is a legitimate alternative. Or you may choose something in between.

The point is that qualitative research, done well, opens up the problem-set in all directions. We will expect you to ride ethnographic data thermals up to the intellectual jetstream, canvass the possibilities, intellectual, strategic and tactical, and return to earth with a very particular set of conclusions and recommendations. Your final assignment will be the Powerpoint/Keynote deck you present on March 31st.

Qualitative research projects of an ethnographic kind in industry (not for profit and for profit) happen very quickly. Many of them go 14 days start to finish. Lucky you. You have an extra week. In the next three weeks, you must get from "Ok, tell me what ethnography is, again?" to a finished presentation. Consider this your amazing race.

We are assuming that students will make up in intelligence, imagination, enterprise and opportunism what they lack in prior acquaintance. We are looking for bold solutions. We are not going to be exacting about the details. This course is not an exercise in methodological orthodoxy or processual exactitude. Wow us with your conclusions and we will take for granted that you did your due diligence, ethnographically speaking. (Good work is otherwise impossible. We will hear the voice of the viewer in your recommendations.)

In this first week, you will get your introduction to the nuts and bolts of research design and ethnographic method. You will meet your team and you will begin to think about which respondents you should be talking to, what questions you will be asking, what your intellectual and strategic horizons will be, and the schedule you will need to design to get the team to January 31st. This is the last day of class. And it is the day on which your team will present. We are hoping to have several distinguished judges to evaluate your work. Our Harvard Business School judge just signed on. We hope also to have someone from PBS.

Step 1. Watch 3 hours of PBS programming. Identify the programming concepts at work here, the audiences to which PBS wishes to speak, the voice(s) in which it speaks, the tone(s) it takes, and the several ways it engages PBS viewers. Note that we are not going to talk about one substantial part of the PBS enterprise: children's programming. Doing ethnographic interviews with kids is a highly specialized art within the ethnographic practice, and we cannot reasonably hope that you will master it. So restrict yourself, please, to adult programming.

Step 2. Contemplate the new media revolution that has taken place in the last 15 years. Think about how television has changed, both network and cable, the rise of the internet, the emergence of new opportunities for interaction and customization, the disintermediation of markets and cultural institutions, the changing role of the expert and authority in general, the arrival of new social networks, and the ways in which these several revolutions have changed the way the viewer sees him or her self, television, knowledge, information, learning, sociality, community, imagination…you get, the idea.

Step 3. Intersect step 1 and step 2. There will be many intersections between the PBS proposition, past, present and possible and the new media, past, present and possible. What we will be doing for the remainder of the course is to gather the ethnographic data and perform the ethnographic analysis that tells us which of these intersections will be most compelling as a future for PBS.

1) Do a 90 minute interview with a perfect stranger. Follow the reading to perform the 4 steps of the ethnographic interview. Tape the interview. Listen to the interview.

2) Continue working with your team, identifying respondents, preparing the questionnaire, and making ready for your PBS research project. You should have a full schedule in place that brings you out with a complete Powerpoint/Keynote deck ready for presentation January 31.

3) Start your interviews.

4) Keep thinking about the three steps of the assignment for Class 1. This is our core question.